Memories of Matchstick

A few days before our trip to Vancouver, when I was in the midst of wrapping up another school year, my partner asked me "What are you most excited to do when we get to Vancouver?" In my foggy brain that was still focused on report cards and marking and cleaning up the classroom, I blurted out "Drink lots of good coffee." And so the search began.

With a few tips and a little research, we developed a little list of coffee shops we wanted to visit while in Vancouver. Although we didn't get to do all of them, we did sample a lot of coffee on our vacation. I had many many iced americanos and countless cups of drip coffee, along with quite a few coffee shop treats. One of the first (and favourite!) places to went to for coffee in Vancouver, was Matchstick. It seemed to pop up out of no where (there's a trend .. finding coffee shops when you least expect it!) while we were trekking downtown on our first day in Vancouver. And it was on the list!

 And we loved it. They roast their beans in many different varieties in house and bake all their goodies right on site. The coffee did not disappoint. The americanos and cappuccinos were smooth and flavourful and the many different varieties of drip coffee available are single-brewed to order. Although there were many many different treats to choose from, we were recommended to try to chocolate almond berry scone. 

Let me tell you about this scone: first, it's vegan (which I didn't even realize until the next day when I actually read the sign) and also, it's made with hearty, nutty spelt flour. It was a dense, flavourful kind of scone, oozing with dark chocolate chips and fresh raspberries and blackberries and I definitely tasted a distinct but not over-powering coconut flavour. It was perfect with our coffee and I made a note to myself to try to re-create it at home.

Check out my drink! It's a home-made iced chai soy latte! You freeze a concentrated chai tea in ice cube trays and add your milk of choice! Recipe here. But I cheated .. and just used chai tea bags instead of regular tea with whole spices.


My scones turned out a little bit lighter but tasted quite similiar. I was sure that Matchstick used coconut oil in their recipe, but seeing as I haven't jumped on the coconut oil craze just yet, I settle for coconut flavoured Earth Balance, which worked perfectly. Ground almonds, almond milk, spelt flour, vegan chocolate chips and of course, fresh-from-the-market raspberries are also in the mix. These scones were a perfect morning and afternoon treat and were gone in no time. I'm already planning a second batch ..


Vegan Chocolate Berry Scones
inspired by Matchstick
recipe adapted from Post Punk Kitchen
makes about 10 medium-sized scones

1/2 cup of ground almonds
1 cup of spelt flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 cup of organic cane sugar
1/3 cup of coconut Earth Balance
1/2 cup of fresh raspberries
1/4 cup of vegan dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup of almond milk

1. In a large bowl, stir together the almonds, flour baking powder and sugar.

2. Add the Earth Balance and, with your fingers, rub the mixture together until you get a coarse mealy-textured mixture.

3. Add the berries, chocolate chips and almond milk. Gently stir the mixture until it comes together in a semi-sticky dough.

4. Drop 1/4 cup-sized mounds of dough on cookie tray and bake at 375 for about 15 minutes, or until the tops get nice and toasty brown.

5. Enjoy with your coffee.  Thanks, Matchstick!!